Duo changes tack after conditions end Lucania climb attempt

Crevasses and the landing location near Mount Lucania force Lonnie Dupre and Pascale Marceau to set their sights on Mount Steele, Canada’s fifth-highest peak

Pascale Marceau and Lonnie Dupre pictured on a previous expedition in Alaska. The duo hoped to become the first team to summit Canada's third-highest mountain in the winter, but have been forced to aim for a different peak due to weather and terrain conditions. (Photo courtesy Pascale Marceau and Lonnie Dupre)

Crevasses and a lack of good landing spots at lower elevations have forced Lonnie Dupre and Pascale Marceau to abandon their attempt to complete the first winter ascent of Mount Lucania, the third-highest peak in Canada at 5,226 metres.

The two climbers have changed course and will now attempt to summit Mount Steele, the country's fifth-highest peak at 5,067 metres. "They have changed their objective from Lucania to Steele," said Mike Schmidt, co-chair of The Royal Canadian Geographical Society's expeditions committee, who is in Yukon assisting with the expedition, in an email. "Apparently, the crevasses and landing location would have made it impossible to climb Lucania. This is likely due to their altitude, and the up-and-down changes that it would require to get to the starting point of their previous route."

In a blog post yesterday, Dupre and Marceau's support team described how the two climbers had moved their gear almost 1,500 metres to an advance base camp to begin their ascent of Mount Steele: "In addition to this haul, they completed one shuttle up towards the ridge, maneuvering crevasses along the way and spotting new ones up top. The two are happy with what they accomplished so far. They're still fighting pesky altitude headaches as they acclimate to the ascent, now nestled at 3069m/10067ft."

Dupre and Marceau began their Lucania — A Frigid First expedition last week, flying from Burwash Landing airport to the icefields near the base of Mount Lucania in the northwest corner of Kluane National Park and Reserve. From there, they had planned to ski to the base of the mountain before beginning their ascent.

Storms and poor weather on and around the mountain had delayed the duo’s original departure date of Jan. 12. “It’s always a tough decision, but there was no sense in flying in only to be grounded in our tent for a few days,” said Marceau last week before the expedition began. “It would have been a poor way to start — depleting our supplies and wearing ourselves down. We believe we have a real chance of success with this and want to put all the chips on our side.”

Marceau said she and Dupre were looking forward to leaving all the organizational details behind and finally hitting the trail. “The only thing we are really worried about is having good visibility, which would mean not having to route-find in blowing snow,” she said. “We can deal with cold, altitude and deep snow, but we need visibility to move forward. Of course, we also think about things like whether we’re fit enough, if we’ve made good decisions about our gear and if the avalanche risk is going to be manageable, but the reality is we do feel ready and need to trust our decisions and experience.”

Mount Lucania — A Frigid First

We’re going up to one of Canada’s northern territories to climb one of the country’s highest mountains in the dead of winter. You have questions, no doubt. Where? What? And perhaps most important, why?

The Lucania — A Frigid First expedition will be the first time a winter ascent of Yukon’s Mount Lucania, part of the St. Elias mountain range, has been attempted. Hardly anyone goes to this area of the world in the winter. The logistics of obtaining permits and finding a pilot who is qualified and willing to perform a glacier landing in January is just the first laborious step in mounting such an expedition.

Still, our aim is to make the St. Elias Mountains and this part of the Yukon better known because it’s unique in so many ways. It has mountains that rise out of the ocean, some of the world’s most expansive icefields and Arctic desert. But in January it also has -50 C temperatures, gale-force winds, limited daylight and multi-day storms. Attempting to summit Mount Lucania will be a test of our will, mountaineering skills and years of polar expedition experience.

When we fly into the St. Elias Mountains, we’ll be taking everything we need to keep us alive for 25 days on the mountain, which is 65 kilometres north of its famous neighbour Mount Logan, Canada’s highest mountain at 5,959 metres. Our clothing will include a mix of modern synthetics and local Indigenous designs of smoke-tanned leather and fur. Our mode of travel in the deep snow will be on custom yellow birch skis that we fabricated using the Nordic craft of steam bending. At 127 millimetres wide and 220 centimetres long, these skis are sure to help with flotation in the snow and spanning the multitude of hidden crevasses.

We have come to crave and love the majestic solitude and breathtaking lighting that one experiences when being in the mountains at cold temperatures. There are no distractions from the outside world, except, perhaps, the occasional airplane overhead. The mountains teach, test, amaze and humble us. They offer an arena in which to grow our relationships with ourselves, others and the Earth. We become acutely attuned to what’s going on with our body and minds, whether it be hunger, aches, pains, morale or thoughts that have for too long been stuck in the recesses of our brains. Testing our physical and mental limits in this way not only captures the imagination but also teaches us that possibilities abound — and that is simply energizing. — Pascale Marceau